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About

The holdfast lies behind walls twelve feet thick. A dry moat lined with a bed of formidable iron spikes surrounds it, with a drawbridge spaning the moat. The only way in or out of Maegor's is across the drawbridge. A knight of the Kingsguard is always posted at its far end.

The royal apartments are located in Maegor's Holdfast.[2] The king's bedchamber has twin hearths. The Queen's Ballroom within Maegor's Holdfast is much smaller than the Great Hall of the Red Keep or the Small Hall of the Tower of the Hand. However, the graceful ballroom can still seat one hundred.[3]

Cheese knew of no way in and out of Maegor's save over the drawbridge. When Rhaenyra Targaryentook King's Landing, Queen Alicent Hightower emerged from Maegor’s and attempted to treat with her stepdaughter but Rhaenyra rejected her proposal. Rhaenyra's men found her rival's wife, the mad Queen Helaena, locked in her bedchamber. When they broke down the doors of Aegon II's apartments they discovered only his empty bed and a full chamberpot.

As Rhaenyra was losing her grip on the Iron Throne, Helaena threw herself from her window in Maegor's Holdfast. She died impaled upon the iron spikes that lined the dry moat below. During the Storming of the Dragonpit Queen Rhaenyra watched the attack unfold from the roof of Maegor's Holdfast with her sons and members of her court.[4]

A Dance with Dragons

Ser Kevan Lannister notes that the dry moat surrounding Maegor's Holdfast is three feet deep in snow and that the iron spikes that line it are glistening with frost. Kevan sups with his niece, Queen Cersei Lannister, and her son, King Tommen Baratheon, in the royal chambers. Tommen tells Kevan that the bad cat was outside his window the previous night.[9]

Quotes

Sansa pulled the hood of her cloak up over her ears, and hurried toward Maegor's Holdfast, the castle-within-a-castle where the queen had promised they would all be safe.[3]